


assumptions

by RJMeta



Series: breath of the wild fics [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst, Betrayal, Gen, Pre-Calamity Ganon, blatant use of headcanons, dubious relations to canon, revali is a teenager in this, switching POV, the champions are kind of dicks, the divine beasts are sentient and have been bonded with their champions far longer than in canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-27 05:55:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20943419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RJMeta/pseuds/RJMeta
Summary: revali didn't ask for any of this.





	1. Chapter 1

one thing everyone seems to forget is that the rito have immensely sharp hearing. when you soar at high altitudes, you have to have such, just for simple comunication. a rito will always hear things before you, and that's partially why revali always takes watch.

that doesn't stop the others completely forgetting about it when it isn't convinent to them. that doesn't stop the position he's found himself in.

"he's so arrogant and full of himself!"

princess zelda sounds annoyed, fed up, even. there's an agreeing scoff from lady urbosa that hits him like a punch to the gut.

"he spends too much time up in the clouds crowing about himself and his abilities. i'd enjoy seeing him grounded for once - it may make him halfway bearable."

chief daruk grunts.

"you'd think he'd be a little bit more responsible. at times he acts more like a child than the adult he is."

_i'm not an adult!_ he wants to scream. _i'm no older than the princess!_ but he holds his tongue and his position overhead, pain making his heart rise into his throat, lodging his voice behind it.

in the back of his mind, he can hear medoh, her concern washing over him like a warm draft of air. his hurt makes his chest ache, a coldness seeping into his bones.

below him, mipha, ever the conflict-avoider, is humming quietly.

"there is some good in him, i know it. else he wouldn't be one of us."

"is he one of us, though?"

urbosa's question cuts through him, the cold turning sharp and bitter. he almost falls from the sky, wings faltering for a moment before he regains his place, blinking furiously against the moisture that springs unbidden to his eyes.

_so that's what they think._

abruptly, he banks sharply, doubling back on himself to rocket back to vah medoh.

<strike>down below, link blinks as a droplet falls to the ground in front of him, unseen by the other four. he looks up, but there is naught above but clear sky.</strike>


	2. Chapter 2

night falls, as it always does, but something about this night feels different to the rest. the air is like static on his skin, and link finds himself watching the skies warily. revali still hasn't returned. he tells himself it's not worry, and rolls into his bedroll and blankets to sleep. as he crosses the border, he feels a murmur in his mind, like a warm breath of air.

-=-=-=-=-

_he blinks, and he is not himself. he is far warmer, plumage brushing gently against itself as he reaches behind his head to braid his crest-feathers. his parents are gone, there is no one else to do this for him. he is no older than a fledgling, ignored by most everyone in the village. the elder is kind to him, but it is a tiny flame against the glacier of the other rito. _

_it is the quiet of pre-dawn, all other rito asleep in warm nests. he hurries in the darkness, quickly preening and dressing. he has no wish to be around the slights of the older youths, the unsubtle jeers and jabs at his careworn appearance. _

_in the back of his mind, the wind whispers warmly, rustling over his shoulders in her form of a hug. he send back his appreciation and grabs his bow - a handmade thing, scratched and scuffed from all the time spent training with it. it has been the object of many slights, but it has served him far better than the bows of his peers. stowing it on his back, he takes off and heads over to the flight range. he will train until his wings cannot hold him, as he does every day. _

_perhaps then, he will have earned the village's respect._

_\---_

_he lays, panting, on the top of the spire, driven to the point of exhaustion, but lighter than ever with elation. _

_he finally did it. _

_he isn't sure when he starts laughing, only knowing that he has when she joins in, her joy in the gentle ruffling of his feathers. he knows she will have messed up his braids, but he find that he doesn't care. he's finally mastered the air, bending it to his whim to create updrafts with a flick of his feathers. _

_suddenly, he sits bolt upright. he needs to show the elder! a wave of dizziness washes over him, only avoiding falling back by a gentle cushion of air that catches him and lays him gently down on his back. _rest,_ she says, in words that are not words but are understood just the same. _rest, then show.

_he agrees, humming sleepily as she covers him in warm thermals._

_ \--- _

_he just barely holds in his sobs, wings pumping as he flees to the top of the spire. the moment he gets up there, his composure is shattered, and he keens, muffling his cries in his wings. he can feel her attempts to comfort him, but he curls tighter and shuts her out, his heart broken like the bow he made, so many hundreds of feet below him. _

_\--- _

_the spire has quickly become the place he goes to hide. more often than not he is up here, briefly escaping the whispers of the village. _

"what makes him so special?"

"he's just an orphaned nobody."

"why should he be gifted with such abilities, when he has done nothing to deserve them?"

_ the others, his older tormentors, have taken his reaching twelve years as permission to beat him up and call it sparring. his back twinges, the gouge from where he'd just barely managed to twist and avoid an arrow into his fragile flight muscles aching. and with the elder sick, there was no one to stand up for him, to keep them from destroying him, bit by bit. _

_a buffet of wind knocks into him, not harsh enough to send him tumbling over, but enough to remind him of her presence. smiling slightly, he opens a wing, wrapping it around the breeze in their approximation of a hug. _

_\--- _

_the elder is dead. _

_he sobs into his knees, the wind wrapped around him in shared grief. _

_\--- _

_he wraps a vaneer of confidence around himself, pretending that he no longer cares about anything other than himself. in truth, he desperately seeks any and all affirmation, clutching every tiny seed of praise close. but if they shall hate him, they will do so on his terms, no one else's. she is saddened by his change, by the way he now bottles up the hurt, taking his quick wit and moulding it into something sharp and vicious, pointed smirks painted onto his beak. _

_but she understands, and she listens when it all becomes too much, when he flees to the mountain to scream. _

_\--- _

_there are others like him. there are others with powers, and she has a _name_ and a _being_ and there are others like him, he isn't _alone_ anymore! _

_she-- medoh, her name is medoh, he is so happy to finally meet her, and she promises that she feels the same-- shares his joy, throwing him high into the air to catch him in her thermals again._

_they cannot wait to meet the others. _

_\--- _

_they hate him. _

_\--- _

_their words cut him deep, a repeat of his youth. he barely makes it back to her before the first sob breaks through, one wing coming up to slap against his beak in a failed effort to muffle the sound. he quietly wails, sharp stinging bitterness rising in him, fuelled by pain and rage and self-loathing at his foolish naivety,_ of course they would hate him, why would they be different to the others in his life?

_she wraps him in warm winds, grieving with him. he cries himself to sleep there, curled into a ball on the back of his divine beast - his only friend. _

-=-=-=-=-

they all wake at the same time. mipha is the first to make a sound, one hand covering her mouth as she sobs, golden eyes wide and brimming with tears. urbosa looks shaken, as does daruk, and zelda...

zelda looks striken, like her whole worldview has been torn apart before her. mentally comparing what they've just seen with what he has witnessed of her life, link supposes that it's a fair enough estimation.

he himself appears outwardly stoic, for the most part, but even his repressive nature cannot stop his eyes from being a touch wider than normal, his skin a few shades paler.

none of them sleep again that night.


	3. Chapter 3

when he wakes, it is to a deep-seated dread in his bones and tears on his cheeks.

he scrambles upright, tension winding in his chest until he can barely breathe, the words coming out choked and strained.

"what-- what did you do? what have you done?"

he absently realises he's shaking, hyperventilating, wings wrapped tightly around himself.

_"little wing, please, calm down, you'll pass out if you don't breathe--"_

"no! no, no, tell me what you did. tell me exactly what in hylia's name you did, medoh, right now."

he's aware he sounds like a petulant child, but the panic thrumming through his veins keeps him from caring.

_"i showed them."_

he chokes, bending over slightly. his wings go from wrapped around his chest to pressed against it, wingtips laced tight enough on the back of his neck that him ripping out the feathers is a serious concern.

"showed them what?!"

_"everything."_

everything seems to slow, the way it does when he's falling through the air with an arrow nocked to his bowstring. he finds himself biting down on his tongue - whether to keep himself from screaming or from saying something he'll regret, he isn't sure. she appears to take his shellshocked silence as a bad sign.

_"little wing, please understand - i only wished for them to see the harm they caused."_

her voice is begging, and still he says nothing.

_"little wing, please say something. i cannot bear to see you look like that, so still and silent."_

her winds wrap around him like a cloak, but he viciously swipes a wing through them, rage overtaking all fear.

"you showed them _everything?!"_

_"little wing--"_

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!"

he's gasping now, little hitched breaths that do nothing for the weakness in his knees and the darkness on the edges of his vision and the roaring in his ears.

"you don't get to call me that, not anymore! you had no right! you had _no right_\--"

his voice breaks and he curses it, vision full of naught but tears as he summons an updraft and takes off. she moves to follow him, but he screams at her over his shoulder.

"LEAVE ME ALONE! I HATE YOU!"

a tiny part of himself realises that, oh, he'd been biting his tongue to prevent himself from saying something he'd regret. but the majority of him is screaming in bitter betrayal and anguish, and he finds that he really doesn't care right now.

she does not follow him. she will not go against his will again.


End file.
